With less than two weeks ‘til Christmas, online sales continued their surge

Online retail sales for the holiday period have grown 25% year-over-year—in line with growth in previous years—but late-season sales are really taking off, say reports from several companies that track online sales.

Online retail sales for the holiday period have grown 25% year-over-year-in line with growth in previous years-but late-season sales are really taking off, say reports from several companies that track online sales.

At the end of last week, sales surged, growing faster than the overall season on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, reports comScore Networks Inc. "The growth rate of online retail spending accelerated during the latter part of last week, with sales on Friday, Dec. 15, growing 38% versus the corresponding day last year," says Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore. "This demonstrates consumers’ willingness to rely on retailers’ late-season shipping guarantees."

Related Articles

Sales on Dec. 13 set a record at $666.9 million, up 29% from the same date last year. ComScore reports these sales (in millions) for each day last week and growth from the year-earlier day: Dec. 11: $660.8, 19% Dec. 12: $619.8, 12% Dec. 13: $666.9, 29% Dec. 14: $634.4, 33% Dec. 15: $623.9, 38%

A new index from payment processor Chase Paymentech that reports the aggregate of transactions at Chase’s client sites reports that Dec. 15 was the busiest shopping day among Chase’s clients and that the entire week maintained high growth. Sales at clients’ sites in December are up 15% over December last year, Chase reports.

Online cell phone and service seller LetsTalk.com reports that Monday, Dec. 18, was its highest volume day and that many of the days in December experienced sales growth of 100% or more over comparable days last year.